DoubleSpeak, How to Lie without Lying

DoubleSpeak, How to Lie without Lying

By At October 30, 2019 0

The term "doublespeak" originates in George Orwell's book "1984" (Nineteen Eighty-Four). Although the term is not used in the book, it is a close relative of two of the book's central concepts, "doublethink" and "Newspeak". Another variant, "doubletalk", also referring to deliberately ambiguous speech, did exist at the time Orwell wrote his book, but the usage of "doublespeak", as well as of "doubletalk", in the sense emphasizing ambiguity clearly postdates the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Parallels have also been drawn between doublespeak and Orwell's classic essay Politics and the English Language, which discusses the distortion of language for political purposes. In it he observes that political language serves to distort and obfuscate reality. Orwell's description of political speech is extremely similar to the contemporary definition of doublespeak:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible … Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness … the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, ...
Edward S. Herman, political economist and media analyst, has highlighted some examples of doublespeak and doublethink in modern society. Herman describes in his book Beyond Hypocrisy the principal characteristics of doublespeak:
What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program.









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